


Not Alone

by catjeno



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry Zhong Chen Le, Platonic Cuddling, Self-Harm, Sweet Lee Jeno
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-11
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:00:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26942542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catjeno/pseuds/catjeno
Summary: "Chenle?"Chenle's eyes flitted from Jeno to the curler. He tried to come up with an excuse, but his mind was too clouded with thoughts thatJeno had seen. He knows how weak you are and he's going to hate you.He's going to hate you
Relationships: Lee Jeno & Zhong Chen Le
Comments: 4
Kudos: 64





	Not Alone

**Author's Note:**

> TW for self harm! stay safe everyone!

Chenle took a deep breath and gingerly set the curler on his palm. Hot pain swarmed through his hand and he winced, but he held the curler there, counting to five. After the count was up he ripped it away from his palm, breathing a sigh of relief. He couldn’t have the burns be too severe, because then the other members might notice.

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to do this on his hand of all places, but right now he didn’t care. He just needed the pain, he needed it at this instant.

He took a second to breathe, staring down at what he had pathetically done to his hand. His gaze became unfocused. _Where had it gone wrong?_

The first time was an accident. They were getting ready for a stage in their latest comeback, the first stage they’d had in a while, and a stylist was using a curler on his hair. Not enough to make it curly, just to get a little extra volume. Long story short, Jaemin and Renjun were messing around behind the stylist and accidentally bumped her. The curler in her hand went right into Chenle’s forehead. And it hurt.

But Chenle found it shocked him out of being anxious over the performance. It let him focus on the pain, focus on something he thought was more real than simple anxiety. He realized he could use this tactic with other things, when he needed the pain to focus.

And so it became a habit.

And that habit brought him here. Pitifully hiding from his members as he hurt himself in their shared bathroom, setting the curler on his palm for a second time because he _needed_ the burn. He had to feel it now because it was the only way he was sure he could still feel anything.

There might have been some sounds in the background, but Chenle didn’t hear them. He was too focused on the pain. The burn grounded him. The scalding torture that let him breathe, that reminded him he had emotions. Maybe if the pain was here, he had an excuse to be hurting.

“Chenle?”

Chenle snapped his head up and jerked the curler away from his hand. Jeno was standing in the bathroom doorway. When had he gotten here? Wasn’t he supposed to be out with Renjun? Why didn’t Chenle notice him coming? Why hadn’t Chenle locked the door?

Chenle’s eyes flitted from Jeno to his hand to the curler. “I—I—” He tried to come up with an excuse, but his mind was too clouded with thoughts that _Jeno had seen. He saw what you did because you couldn’t even hide it properly. He knows how weak you are and he’s going to hate you._

_He’s going to hate you._

Chenle threw the curler on the counter and shoved past Jeno. He ignored Jeno calling out to him, only vaguely registering Renjun giving him a startled look from the kitchen before he bolted out of the dorm. He ran down the hall and jerked open the door to the stairwell, fluorescent light and gray walls flooding his vision. He would be too trapped in the elevator, he needed to escape _now._

He scrambled up the steps without thinking, footsteps echoing off the concrete walls. One flight became two, then three. His hand throbbed as his heart pounded, but he didn’t pay attention to it. He just ran.

He tripped halfway up his fourth flight. And then suddenly something in him gave up, and he didn’t try to get back up again. He just laid on the cold stairs, chest heaving as he gulped in breaths to soothe his stinging lungs. Somehow he managed to pull himself into a sitting position, resting his head against the cool metal railing. Now that he'd stopped moving, the silence in the staircase surrounded him, pressing against his ears. He couldn't tell if it was mocking him or not.

He supposed this is where the tears should come, but the strange thing was they didn’t. He felt too hollow. He couldn’t even cry.

So he just sat against the railing and breathed. Staring at his seared palm as his heartbeat throbbed in his ears.

Soon after, Chenle heard the distant squeak of hinges. Cautious footsteps echoed up the staircase, sounding closer and closer. Chenle supposed that was his cue to get up, but he still couldn’t seem to move a limb. They all just felt too heavy, he was despaired at the thought of even trying.

As expected, Jeno eventually emerged from below. The harsh yellow lighting glanced coldly off his face, but Chenle could still clearly see his worry clearly.

For the second time that afternoon, Chenle couldn’t find words. He just stared with tired eyes, mouth twitching as it tried to come up with something to say. But every time something was on the tip of his tongue, he just saw Jeno’s scared face back in the bathroom doorway. The confusion and worry and outright _fear_ in Jeno’s eyes, it was all too much. It burned into Chenle’s mind, searing him with hot guilt. How fitting.

“Are you alright?” Jeno asked, taking a seat on the cold steps. Chenle met him with a pained stare. No, of course he wasn’t alright, Jeno thought, that was a dumb question. He tried again. “Can you—can you tell me what that was back there?” Jeno thought he already knew, but maybe he was wrong. He hoped he was wrong.

Chenle winced and dropped his gaze. “‘m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m just… tired.” Jeno nodded, but Chenle continued as if he didn’t notice, mumbling to his newly burned hand. “I know how bad it was, I know I shouldn’t have done it but I…” his breath hitched. “I’m sick of being numb.

“I’m so fed up with it and pain is one of the only ways I can even feel something anymore so I…” His head drooped into his arms. “I’m so sorry.”

“Hey, hey.” Jeno inched forward until he was sitting on the same stair, then pulled Chenle into a gentle hug. “You don’t ever have to apologize for this. You don’t have to explain yourself either. Sometimes it just gets a little too much, yeah?”

There was a muffled sniff as Chenle bobbed his head up and down.

“And that’s fine. We just…” Jeno paused as he calmed his thoughts. He was scared right now, fuck, he was so worried, he just hoped his hands weren’t shaking as much as they felt like they were. “We can help you. So you don’t have to hurt yourself more, okay?”

Chenle nodded again, slumping into Jeno’s embrace. They sat like that for a bit, finding warmth in each other on the cold staircase. Jeno spoke after a few minutes, his tone light and cautious.

“How about we go back inside and treat your hand?” Fear flashed across Chenle’s face, Jeno rushed to reassure him. “I promise Renjun is the only other one in the dorm. We don’t have to tell him everything for now, just that you got burned.”

Chenle considered it for a moment, eventually giving a subdued nod. It hit Jeno just how exhausted the boy looked. His dull eyes held dark bags under them, and oh, since when did his cheekbones jut out that much?

Had the Dream members really let this just _happen_ to him? Jeno saw it, they all did, how Chenle had been more quiet recently, how he smiled less. Jeno just chalked it up to the boy maturing, after all, Chenle himself had said more than once that he wanted to be less childish. But this was something else entirely. Memories of recent times when Chenle wouldn’t leave his room for hours at a time, how often he spaced out, how he’d become closed off and irritable, they popped into Jeno’s mind one by one. Chenle had clearly been acting off, and Jeno had just ignored it, all of the Dream members had.

Jeno gritted his teeth and bit his thoughts down for now. He needed to focus.

He helped Chenle up, careful to avoid his friend’s burned hand, and started to guide him back down the stairs. They walked back to the dorm in silence. Renjun started towards them once they were inside, but Jeno gestured for him to stay back, shooting him an _I’ll explain later_ look. Chenle either didn’t notice or consciously chose to ignore it. He just slinked into the bathroom, where their small collection of first aid items was stashed, and took a seat on the closed toilet lid. The curler was still laying on the counter. Jeno unplugged it and immediately threw it into a cabinet under the sink, out of sight.

A few minutes later and Chenle’s palm was properly washed, dried, and covered in a layer of petroleum jelly. He stayed silent the whole time, obediently following Jeno’s instructions as one thought played over and over in his head: _God, he was so stupid._

Stupid for what, exactly? He didn’t know, he supposed he was stupid for everything. Hurting himself. Letting someone catch him. Letting it get this bad in the first place.

He had thought he was strong. People went through much worse than _being famous,_ and yet Chenle couldn’t seem to take it. Why could everyone else in NCT but him handle it? Mark, Taeyong, and Donghyuck could even balance promoting in multiple groups at a time. All of his hyungs and Jisung, they were fine. So why wasn’t _he_?

Where did he go wrong? Why couldn’t he even bring himself to talk to his friends when he _knew_ they would support him? Instead he just locked himself away, too scared to get help.

Pathetic.

“Time to put the bandages on,” Jeno said. His voice was so distant to Chenle, it might as well have been said through layers of mud.

“Chenle?”

“I…” Chenle’s good hand clenched into a fist, balling up the material on his sweatpants. His voice shuddered. “I’m sorry.” His hand shot up to his face, wiping furiously at the tears that were starting to well out of his eyes. He wished Jeno would look away, why did Jeno have to see him cry like this?

Alarmed, Jeno set the bandages down and hurried over to Chenle’s side. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t need to be sorry for this, remember?”

“But I do!” Chenle wailed. “I couldn’t even bring myself to get help because I was so scared of how you’d see me. What kind of person doesn’t even trust their own friends?”

Jeno’s shoulders drooped. “Oh Lele…” He moved closer, enveloping Chenle in a hug for the second time today. Chenle collapsed into it, wrapping his arms tightly around Jeno as he wailed into the elder’s shirt. He let everything out, crying and crying until his voice was hoarse and his stomach hurt and his face was beyond red. And Jeno let him, Jeno rocked him back and forth slowly the whole time. He felt safe, Jeno felt like home.

Chenle vaguely realized this was the first time he’d cried in months.

Some time afterwards Chenle detached himself from Jeno. His face flushed when he saw his friend’s shirt; the poor thing had been reduced to a puddle thanks to him. He reddened even more when he realized his nose was running. A lot.

He dashed for a tissue with his good hand, avoiding eye contact again. “Sorry,” he mumbled for what felt like the tenth time. And then, after a small moment of hesitation, “Thank you.”

Jeno smiled and patted him on the head. Then he moved to pick up the roll of bandages. “You know,” he said as he wrapped gauze around Chenle’s palm, “I don’t think you’re a bad person for being scared. Our minds aren’t always nice to us, we tend to think irrationally when we’re stressed or scared. But please know no one is going to hate you for doing this, or for needing help. Not me, not the 127 hyungs, and especially not the Dream members. Not even Renjun-hyung will hate you, and he hates a lot of things.” This earned a wet chuckle from Chenle. “But I do have to know,” Jeno straightened, now done with the bandages. “How long has this been going on?”

Chenle bit his lip. “A few months,” he answered honestly. Jeno nodded but didn’t push, instead putting the first aid items back in the cabinet.

“Wanna watch a movie?” he offered. “Your pick.”

Chenle gave a weak smile. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that would be nice.”

A few minutes later and the pair found themselves on Jeno’s bed, Chenle curled around Jeno (who now wore a fresh shirt) as _Big Hero 6_ played from his laptop. “I’m sorry I ruined your day off,” Chenle said a few minutes in.

“If I hear you say sorry one more time I’m going to smack you,” Jeno said, earning a sheepish smile from Chenle. “You didn’t ruin it. Besides, we’ll have more days off soon. Maybe we can use the next one to go to that barbeque place, I bet we can try to drag Mark along too.”

“Mm, yeah that does sound nice,” Chenle mumbled. He snuggled closer to Jeno and turned his sleepy eyes back towards the screen, feeling warmer and safer and more alive than he’d felt in a long time.

**Author's Note:**

> this is smth i wrote back around Ridin' era but thought i could post now as today is world mental health day!
> 
> sometimes it's hard, like really hard, remembering that there are people here for us, who would love to help us with our problems, or even just listen to us rant, if given the chance. it's a very difficult thing to believe for a lot of us, but there is always someone you can talk to when you need it, who won't mind at all listening to you. easier said than done, but i hope everyone just takes this simple reminder that there is always someone to reach out to if you need it (including me! my instagram is @catjeno so if you ever need to talk id be happy to listen!)
> 
> k that's it, thanks for reading this rant and hope everyone has a lovely day/night :)
> 
> p.s. might add a chapter 2 to this we'll see


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